“Yes,” Frannie said quietly. “Yes, I do.”

“And all the time I’m going crazy, thinking that something is going to happen, we’re going to get attacked by a motorcycle gang or something, run out of water, I don’t know.

“There used to be a book my mom had, she got it from her grandmother or something. In His Steps, that was the name of it. And there were all these little stories about guys with horrible problems. Ethical problems, most of them. And the guy who wrote the book said that to solve the problems, all you had to do was ask, ‘What would Jesus do?’ It always cleared the trouble right up. You know what I think? It’s a Zen question, not really a question at all but a way to clear your mind, like saying Om and looking at the tip of your nose.”

Fran smiled. She knew what her mother would have said about something like that.

“So when I really started to get wound up, Lucy—that’s my girl, did I tell you?—Lucy would say, ‘Hurry up, Larry, ask the question.’”

“What would Jesus do?” Fran said, amused.

“No, what would Harold do?” Larry answered seriously. Fran was nearly dumbfounded. She could not help wishing to be around when Larry actually met Harold. Whatever in the world would his reaction be?

“We camped in this farmyard one night and we really were almost out of water. The place had a well, but no way of drawing it up, naturally, because the power was off and the pump wouldn’t work. And Joe—Leo, I’m sorry, his real name is Leo—Leo kept walking by and saying, ‘Firsty, Larry, pwetty firsty now.’ And he was driving me bugshit. I could feel myself tightening up, and the next time he came by I probably would have hit him. Nice guy, huh? Getting ready to hit a disturbed child. But a person can’t change all at once. I’ve had plenty of time to work that out for myself.”

“You brought them all across from Maine intact,” Frannie said. “One of ours died. His appendix burst. Stu tried to operate on him, but it was no good. All in all, Larry, I’d say you did pretty well.”

“Harold and I did pretty well,” he corrected. “Anyway, Lucy said, ‘Quick, Larry, ask the question.’ So I did. There was a windmill on the place that ran water up to the barn. It was turning pretty good, but there wasn’t any water coming out of the barn faucets either. So I opened the big case at the foot of the windmill, where all the machinery was, and I saw that the main driveshaft had popped out of its hole. I got it back in and bingo! All the water you could want. Cold and tasty. Thanks to Harold.”

“Thanks to you. Harold wasn’t really there, Larry.”

“Well, he was in my head. And now I’m here and I brought him the wine and the candy bars.” He looked at her sideways. “You know, I kind of thought he might be your man.”

She shook her head and looked down at her clasped fingers. “No. He… not Harold.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time, but she felt him looking at her. At last he said, “Okay, how have I got it wrong? About Harold?”

She stood up. “I ought to go in now. It’s been nice to meet you, Larry. Come by tomorrow and meet Stu. Bring your Lucy, if she’s not busy.”

“What is it about him?” he insisted, standing with her.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said thickly. Suddenly the tears were very close. “You make me feel as if… as if I’ve treated Harold very shabbily and I don’t know… why or how I did it… can I be blamed for not loving him the way I do Stu? Is that supposed to be my fault?”

“No, of course not.” Larry looked taken aback. “Listen, I’m sorry. I barged in on you. I’ll go.”

“He’s changed!” Frannie burst out. “I don’t know how or why, and sometimes I think it might be for the better… but I don’t… don’t really know. And sometimes I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of Harold?”

She didn’t answer; only looked down at her feet. She thought she had already said too much.

“You were going to tell me how I could get there?” he asked gently.

“It’s easy. Just go straight out Arapahoe until you come to the little park… the Eben G. Fine Park, I think it is. The park’s on the right. Harold’s little house is on the left, just across from it.”

“All right, thanks. Meeting you was a pleasure, Fran, busted vase and all.”

She smiled, but it was perfunctory. All of the dizzy good humor had gone out of the evening.

Larry raised the bottle of wine and offered his slanted little smile. “And if you see him before I do… keep a secret, huh?”

“Sure.”

“Night, Frannie.”

He walked back the way he had come. She watched him out of sight, then went upstairs and slipped into bed next to Stu, who was still out like a light.

Harold, she thought, pulling the covers up to her chin. How was she supposed to tell this Larry, who seemed so nice in his strangely lost way (but weren’t they all lost now?), that Harold Lauder was fat and juvenile and lost himself? Was she supposed to tell him that one day not so long ago she had happened upon wise Harold, resourceful Harold, what-would-Jesus-do Harold, mowing the back lawn in his bathing suit and weeping? Was she supposed to tell him that the sometimes sulky, often frightened Harold that had come to Boulder from Ogunquit had turned into a stout politician, a backslapper, a hail-fellow-well-met type of guy who nonetheless looked at you with the flat and unsmiling eyes of a gila monster?

She thought her wait for sleep might be very long tonight. Harold had fallen hopelessly in love with her and she had fallen hopelessly in love with Stu Redman, and it certainly was a tough old world. And now every time I see Harold I get such a case of the creeps. Even though he looks like he’s lost ten pounds or so and he doesn’t have quite so many pimples, I get the—

Her breath caught audibly in her throat and she sat up on her elbows, eyes wide in the dark.

Something had moved inside her.

Her hands went to the slight swelling of her middle. Surely it was too early. It had only been her imagination. Except—

Except it hadn’t been.

She lay back down slowly, her heart beating hard. She almost woke Stu up and then didn’t. If only he had put the baby inside her, instead of Jess. If he had, she would have awakened him and shared the moment with him. The next baby she would. If there was a next baby, of course.

And then the movement came again, so slight it might only have been gas. Except she knew better. It was the baby. And the baby was alive.

“Oh glory,” she murmured to herself, and lay back. Larry Underwood and Harold Lauder were forgotten. Everything that had happened to her since her mother had fallen ill was forgotten. She waited for it to move again, listening for that presence inside herself and fell asleep listening. Her baby was alive.

Harold sat in a chair on the lawn of the little house he had picked out for himself, looking up at the sky and thinking of an old rock and roll song. He hated rock, but he could remember this one almost line-for-line and even the name of the group that had sung it: Kathy Young and the Innocents. The lead singer, songstress, whatever, had a high, yearning, reedy voice that had somehow caught his full attention. A golden goody, the DJs called it. A Blast from the Past. A Platter that Matters. The girl singing lead sounded sixteen years old, pallid, blond, and plain. She sounded as if she might be singing to a picture that spent most of its time buried in a dresser drawer, a picture that was taken out only late at night when everyone else in the house was asleep. She sounded hopeless. The picture she sang to had perhaps been clipped from her big sister’s yearbook, a picture of the local Big Jock—captain of the football team and president of the Student Council. The Big Jock would be slipping it to the head cheerleader on some deserted lovers’ lane while far away in suburbia this plain girl with no breasts and a pimple in the corner of her mouth sang: